How Agyness Deyn's name ensures fame and fortune

A new age guru, who claims to be Britain's only professional name analyst, has revealed he is responsible for supermodel Agyness Deyn's success.

British model Agyness Deyn was born as Laura HollinsPhoto: John Taylor

By Chris Irvine

10:27AM BST 27 Jul 2008

Laurence Y Payg, 'reads' people's names using a 3,000-year-old Chinese technique, and suggests changes in order to make them more successful.

And he claims Agyness, known as plain old Laura Hollins, approached him after reading about him to help kick-start her career.

Payg, 59, who was born Laurence David Adams and has changed his own name three times, said: "Agyness really wanted to be a successful model.

"There wasn't a lot of success ahead for her if she carried on as Laura Hollins, so she needed a name that would enhance her career."

Payg's technique assigns numbers from one to nine to different letters of the alphabet.

All totals from one to 64 relate to personality traits - 21 for example represents kindness, caring and giving.

Certain individual letters can also influence someone's life - G, Y, P, D and O are considered positive, while B, F, W, U, X and H are negative.

Deyn had already signed with London agency Models 1 when she met Payg, but it was only after she changed her name that her career took off.

Payg explained: "When I first met her, Agyness was entering a three-year period of losses, as indicated by the U in Laura, and her names didn't work well together.

"Lauras can be childlike, they're naturally inquisitive and might love dressing up, as this Laura did, but coupled with Hollins, it was never going to work."

He added: "Legally changing a name changes the energy that powers the person's body.

"We didn't want Agyness to have a stressful time because of that H, so we just got rid of it."

Agyness suggested her grandmother's name Agnes, and an old family surname Dean, which Payg then adapted ensuring her surname had the value 21, while a middle initial of G would ensure financial and emotional gains.

He added: "Soon after her name change, Agyness's career sky-rocketed.

"Absolutely nothing else about her circumstances changed: she stayed with the same agency, kept her hairstyle, her look, and yet everything suddenly changed."

Payg added that Agyness was so convinced by his methods, her sister Emily, 21, and mother Lorraine, 55, have both changed their surname to Deyn, while Lorraine has changed the I in her first name to Y.

Agyness' agent at Models 1 confirmed Laurence changed her name but were unwilling to add any more.